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The day started at 6AM, with me waking with my alarm. I had fallen asleep from exhaustion the night before and had to get up at 1:30AM to finish getting ready for bed. I was happy that I was not dragging when I started on Tuesday morning. The lack of sleep seems to be causing my breathing issues.

I did my stretches and exercises, excluding those not done daily, and then read emails and Slack channel updates. I was busy until 7ish, when I showered and got dressed. I boarded Air Volvo and arrived before 8AM at the Clubhouse office building for the shoe company and home of our project.

The project was finishing important critical path tasks, and at 1PM was the determination to move to the next step. I was voting this time as I was filling in for my co-worker Rajani who was doing family things in India–we wish them all well and a great time in India (wish we were there to help and enjoy the events).

I had multiple crises of the moment and some vendor patches that did not work, and I had to send a message to the vendor to fix their stuff (SAP Incident on SAP notes, for you who speak SAP). I received some suggestions from the vendor, applied more patches, and then returned the message as that, too, failed. We also had a severe break and other issues. I was busy.

Everything quieted for a moment, and I headed out to see Susie. I arrived at the hummingbird house in Air Volvo without incident or enjoying imaginative driving from my fellow drivers. The grey wet seemed to slow everyone and drain them of any imagination. But I love it–it is an Oregon thing. “Look at that grey; wow, it is dark!” is something only an Oregonian would say with a smile.

Susie was still eating when I arrived at 11. I stood by and read a letter from Eva to Susie while she ate–Thank you, Eva. Susie ate until 11:15, finishing her Ensure, strawberry flavor. Susie and I then headed to the social activity room and called Leta, her mother. Leta called us back when she was in her house; she was returning from Bible Study when we called. For St. Valentine’s Day, I ordered fruitcake and fudge from the monks for Leta–she loved it. Leta and Susie chatted for a while. I stayed longer than my usual short stay on a work day. I thought Susie need a bit more time and she seemed relieved when I stayed a bit longer. But I had issues showing on my iPhone from the project and questions I needed to answer. So I left Susie with a kiss and she was OK with me leaving today. No tears for me today.

Work went on with a few more crises and then suddenly slowed, the usual afternoon change of shift slowdown. I stay past my shift and start before it so I can prevent any botched handovers. I am not sure I can keep that up, but for the moment it works.

I did the pre-sale of Expeditions from Stonemaier Games picking the maxed-out version, of course. This is the same company that made the board game Scythe and this new game is based on the same steampunk themes. I have a totally bling’d version of Scythe and there was no thought of not buying this new game.

I also read that Vindication, another fav game, is finally delivering the last Kickstarter in the USA. I also read that there is a fix package, free, for all the corrections (like the last time) that have been discovered. A special Penitence card pack is also being provided for free as a special for us supporters. Yes, the game was designed here in the Greater Portland Area, overly polite, and over-caffeinated.

Well, it will be a short blog. Not much to share–just lots of work at work. I did order through the app from Olive Garden and picked up dinner. Spaghetti with meatballs, two breadsticks (they changed to only two breadsticks years ago), and a great salad. I ate that and watched the Vox Machina episodes I missed these last few weeks. This is a profane animated series based on a Dungeons and Dragon campaign–I am liking the second season.

Thanks for reading.

It being Monday, a work-from-home day, I slept in until after 7:30 but woke up a lot. I have felt like I have breathing issues and have been tired all day. However, there is no coughing or loss of smell or taste, so there is no reason to believe it is Covid-19. I just need a weekend from my weekend!

As I said, I luxuriated in bed until I had to get started. I was online at night with the start of the next testing cycle for the project at the shoe company. While in bed, I checked for any issues and finally got going and made coffee in the kitchen. Breakfast was light; I had a late dinner on Sunday of oven-baked clam strips with tartar sauce and canned peaches. Breakfast was peanut butter toast and some more canned peaches. I wrote the blog last night and was falling asleep as I was writing it–a theme for today too.

I started my day by reading emails from the shoe company and my own, Slack channel updates (lots of these), and CNN to get a handle on what was happening. I was feeling OK but a bit dizzy as the morning went on. I did the first couple hours of meetings and then took a break to do my exercises and stretches. I managed to complete them as a distraction for the re-org meeting.

Yes, time for another re-org, effective immediately. Our director is now moved to the project director and will continue to exist after the project (yes, a concern mostly not spoken of). The legacy systems remain in the old structure for the time being. Thus, I survived another re-org–it is The Way of corporate IT.

Now that that was done, I headed out to see Susie. But I was feeling off, so I had a ham and cheese sandwich before leaving, slicing the ham from an Olympic Provision ham. So good. I sliced a bit more than needed and had a stacked sandwich. I think that made me sleepy and maybe caused some breathing issues, which I believe are primarily mental (I get tired and just want to sleep, and the breathing issues slow me). I know that all checks of my oxygen levels always come back good.

So tired, I headed to Susie’s without issue or any observations of extra-legal driving. I stop by Safeway and get some fresh flowers (Susie’s flowers in her room are fading) and some bananas for breakfast). Susie was delighted to see me; she resting in her recliner in the shared living room, watching the news. It was depressing with an earthquake in Eastern Türkiye (Turkey) that also impacted Syria, thousands dead. The China Ballon crisis continues into absurdity. The reports that the Trump administration let the balloons in, claimed to be fake news by the former president, were actually fake news. Worse, our very expensive military had not noticed them before (ugh). Instead of focusing on that, we called Leta, Susie’s mother, and they chatted for a while. We use my iPhone and FaceTime so Susie and Leta can see each other. Susie gets to practice holding the phone, and this keeps Susie from falling asleep (but today, she seemed very awake).

I was in a rush and feeling off, so I did not stay long; my regular visit is about twenty minutes on a working day (twenty minutes there, stay for 20, and then travel back twenty minutes again). The travel back was easy traffic, but my inhaler was not helping as much as I had hoped, and I felt like I could not breathe. Not a very happy drive. Once back at the house, I felt better.

The afternoon was full of crises of the moment as we headed to the 4:30 status meeting,g where I had to give some updates. Mostly, things were fine. I followed along, getting some rest a few times to improve my breathing. A short 15 min absolves the problem–yes,s it is in my head.

I head to BJ’s around 6 and have appetizers for dinner. Chips and flatbread with the waiter, a new one, suggesting something that I thought was not as good as my usual, but it is good to try things. I finish with coffee and a shot of Amaretto to sip with the coffee.

I am tired and have been watching, on my iPhone, all the events at the shoe company.

That is a wrap! Thanks, for reading!

I started the morning by waking before my alarm at 7:30, was up around 7, and started on the blog and my second ship model. We are playing dungeons and dragons today, so I wanted to finish it; and also have other things I want to do (Kaggle contest), so I needed the ship to finish.

I did not rush the blog, which is the Sunday morning blog; there was a lot to cover for my busy Saturday. I also glued the strip to the ship’s edges to finish it. The challenge is not to break something when making some of the final fixes. I knocked the ship wheel loose and used ca glue to fix the wheel stand to the deck. I used white glue before, which will hold unless pressure snaps the adhesion. White glue can be cleaned up with water and shrinks as it dries. That was the only failure. I let the glue dry while I wrote the blog.

I finished the blog at about 9:20 and removed the masking tape, and then reglued a few areas that had not held and taped them. I then got dressed and headed to see Susie. This Sunday, we would not do church as ice skating was on in the morning.

I managed to get to the hummingbird house without incident in the light Sunday morning traffic. Beaverton’s Finest was out and giving tickets this morning. I was careful and legal and did not draw the police’s attention.

Susie was in her recliner when I arrived and was delighted to see me. I discussed it with her, and it was “yes” for ice skating. I then spent forty minutes trying to make Peacock work. I finally had to set up NBC streaming on my Apple laptop, which worked. Susie could watch most of the European competitions on my laptop in a recliner in the social activity room. I left for lunch, and the connection failed. Susie was disappointed and had lunch. I returned and took another ten minutes to reconnect. I am unsure what caused the issue (it had worked for an hour while I was there).

I had lunch at Red Robin just down the street from Susie’s place. I had their Ensalda Plater and a Diet Coke. I sat at the bar, and my usual bartender took care of me. It was a nice break, but I rushed.

Peacock and NBC’s schedule for steaming does not match. I learned this when looking at schedules. Susie can only see some ice skating on Peacock, despite the sales pitch, as Peacock only selectively steams NBC Sports. Growl. Thus the European Championship and the US National Exhibition were not on Peacock.

We managed to watch most of it today from 1 to 3PM. I stayed with Susie and read my email on my iPhone. On my iPhone, we also connected with Barb, Susie’s sister, and wished Kaleb a happy birthday (Barb’s son). I had to head out a 3PM to get ready to play Dungeons and Dragons. I had to finish the ship, get a character, and get everything in the Air Volvo.

My printer stopped printing. This after Air Volvo got me home in light traffic, sanding and painting a clear satin finish on the ship’s wood–it made it look nice, creating a character and recording it in a PDF of the Dungeons and Dragons character sheet. After I unplugged the printer, did it finally work?

I then headed to Cory’s house, and we played a fun start of a new six-month to a year-long campaign of 5E Dungeons and Dragons Spelljamming–Swords and Sorcery in space. It is always exciting to start over, and everyone adopts new roles. This time we went with a combat-centric group of characters. For the first time in a very long time, I am playing a paladin, a holy fighter. The story is that we have signed up for an academy to learn spelljamming, much of it following a Star Trek model. We are cadets.

We also used the new ship models, all finished and ready for use, and that made me smile.

We ended a bit early at 8:45 (starting at 5:30) and I drove home and then made clam strips for a late dinner/snack. I was very tired as I have been going non-stop for two days.

I had a Slack message during the game and replied. The 7/24 project started running full-out today at 9AM IST Monday (7:30 Portland Sunday evening). I had to watch some of that while playing.

I am tired and starting to fall asleep while writing. Time to stop and thank you for reading.

Going backward, I was home after midnight as Kathleen, Richard, and I chatted for a while after the last game. I will start with the fact that I did not win the two Wingspan games we played. In the second game, Richard included the Europe-Asian expansion, and we enjoyed the new options (my score was even lower)–recommended now by me. Having been sleeving the cards before we played, Richard had never opened the expansion before; he explained his choices for sleeves and how he watches for sales and just orders various practical sizes. I don’t sleeve all the cards to protect them in my games.

The board game Wingspan is an elegant game where you collect birds into your sanctuary and have little eggs, and you can build engines and react to other player’s actions. I find it a bit more random, but it is fun to play.

Next, we play the basic version of the hidden movement and searching game Mind MGMT. The game is played with one player as the recruiter, and the other players play agents trying to capture the recruiter. The agent players can ask some questions to try to locate the recruiter. I like this kind of game, but they are not engine-building or traitor games, so not every gamer like this style. Next, we played the training version–this kind of game has a lot of mechanics that take a few plays to get right. The Fury of Dracula, where one player plays Dracula, and the others are trying to hunt the vampire before he places more vampires, is another well-loved version that I have and have played quite a few times (now in its fourth edition that is only a few component changes (larger figures and bigger cards) than the third edition–I have the 3rd). It has multiple rule books and an obscure combat system but still a favorite. In comparison, Mind MGMT plays fast, and the rules are easy once you get used to the strange colors and words.

Before this, I was at The Lucky Labrador in Portland off of Hawthorn playing games and eating (and drinking) with Evan. We played Wingspan (my copy of the game and I won that one) and the locally created Vindication board game. I had a Czech beer and a Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato (BLT) sandwich (the bread is artisan, and the bacon is hot, thick-cut–wonderful). Evan was happy to crush me in Vindication.

Before this, I was at Susie’s. Susie fell asleep in minutes today. She looked comfortable and seemed happy. But, when I went to leave at 2ish, she said, “You are going to leave me,” with a sad face. Susie wanted to go with us but knew it was impossible for some reason, which made her sad. I cried in the car driving to Portland. But, soon, Susie kissed me goodbye and was quickly fine.

We tried the new Peacock show, Poker Face, but Susie slept through most of it. Evan, who also showed up, slept through it. I liked it (and did not get sleepy). This is a remake of something like Rockford Files or Columbo, where the murder is shown, and now you watch as the detective works out how to catch the bad guy (some guest star). This version is a gal who knows if you are lying–she cannot be fooled even on the phone or on video. While in her thirties and set in the current times, she smokes and drinks, and swears like a sailor. I liked the mix and would recommend it.

We called Susie’s mother, Leta, and Susie and Leta had a friendly chat, but Susie nodded off a few times. Leta was happy that it was above zero (-18C) and was enjoying a lazy Saturday. We made it a short call as Susie had trouble paying attention and staying awake.

I have not mentioned driving; today, the traffic was heavy but always moving. The lane changing and merges were hair-raising a few times today. The mix of polite but crazy is not fun at speeds over fifty! On the way to Richards from The Lucky Labrador, I got on the back streets and found myself dodging a bus! In this case, I had started crossing four lanes, and then the bus started as I was halfway–there was no place to go but hit the pedal and get around the bus–I am not proud of that one. No paint was lost on Air Volvo today.

I started the morning working on my ship models. I put on the flags and names for the ships that fit some past gaming use and the current times: Unexpected and Unprecedented. I built the sales for the Unprecedented but then decided the space jammer would look better and be more useful as a gaming model without the masts. I attached the deck equipment (including a lovely brass wheel) and wrapped the edges in mahogany wood strips. I have kit bashed an HMS Victory wooden model kit of the bow (front) of the famous ship. This a cutaway. I bought the ruined and partially finished kit years ago on eBay, thinking I could try this–A new kit is $370. It is the nearly impossible Italian kit where you must cut out everything and do it perfectly to have the model come together. I paid much less than that, and it has been sitting in the garage for more than five years. Time to use. No regrets.

I wrote the Friday blog on Friday at Wildwood Taphouse. After finishing the blog, I had another beer and started on my Kaggle contest. Yes, beer helps my python programming. I reread all the directions with care. I read other folks coding examples (nobody was coding like me–interesting) in the articles (this contest has a cash reward for articles–the idea is that more articles then more contestants and better results with some knowledge sharing). I must admit that the double integration and power series math problems go back to the 1980s for me. However, I did see some ideas that I was wondering about, least-square (some custom implementations to match the problem), centroids, and other line-matching processes.

Kaggle contests are money for solving a machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI) problem, or other math-centric problems for real-world problems. For example, I am working on ICE data from a neutrino detector, and the idea is to trace the detection back to the sky that sourced the particle. A very fuzzy and small set of data that simple (or complex) typical math solutions fail at is the world of approximating ML and AI detection. From my undergraduate 1980s AI work (I don’t get to say that often), I know that least square and other like approaches are overly sensitive to errors in the data–so it was nice to return to a problem I worked on once before.

My first approach on Kaggle code is to produce a result set that, while hard-coded to the wrong results, at least passes the initial test and correctly submits. Unfortunately, my code failed, and I had not returned to it, frustrated, for a week. As I had no working code, I also missed the chance to write an article. Very frustrated. The beer helped, it was my second one, and I noticed that nobody was reopening the results file and appending the results. Instead, they unloaded their results set directly from a dataframe. I tried to make each batch independent, but that was not what the other working examples were doing. I changed my code to accumulate the pseudo-results and write it out as a CSV with a header. Pass, and somehow I even scored higher (!) than other folks (266th best team). I am back in the game.

I hope to find some time one of these evenings to work on slightly improved results using least-squares and then adjusting with a Monte Carlo (random improvements). It is often a good idea to combine something like this to create a base and know that any cool ML or AI solution you write needs to be better than a stupid sled-hammer-like algorithm.

I managed to sleep and get going without issues on Saturday.

I am running out of time, so I will stop here: Thank you for reading!

Sorry, I forgot the photos today as I was helping feed Susie today.

I was feeling out-of-sorts and decided to head to Wildwood Taphouse and write the blog tonight with a dark beer and friends. On the way, I called another friend to learn that the bad cold is Covid-19. This friend tested and was negative, but when he/she could not smell Vic’s Vapor Rub, it was time to test again–Covid-19. Appropriate steps are being taken now, and the household is improving.

I was tired a few times and always wondered if these were close calls for me.

Today is Friday, so it is a work-from-home day at the shoe company for our department. The rules are, growl, different by departments and sometimes by the director. I slept in a bit, having gone to bed early. I finished the novel WinterSwallows (Commissario Ricciardi book ten) and stayed up late on Wednesday to finish it. I was a bit unhappy as it dragged, but the last section was tremendous, and I recommend the book. This left me with hardcover books or ordering more brain cookies on my Kindle. 

I am reading the hardcover How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth, which is terrific. It is not a brain cookie but an excellent book on telling stories. I enjoyed the introduction and the first chapter. I have also found a brain cookie, not a very well-written one, in a new (well, some time ago) Grey Mouser and Fafhard book: Swords Against the Shadowland (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Book 8). This one is not by the original author and is filled with flourishes that don’t match the previous books. But, it is a new story, and while eight in number, it is set between books one and two. While a copied story and not a good one, I still like it as a brain cookie, and so if you need a new-ish Sword and Sorcery from the 1960s-70s style, here it is. 

I continued with work and followed along. As the big 7/24 stuff starts at 7:30 Sunday it was a day of catch-up and trying to slide one more thing in before the project starts running full-out. Between meetings, I made oatmeal from steel-cut oats with cranberries, some brown sugar, and walnuts added once cooked. You cook it for twenty-five minutes. I reheated some breakfast sausages to go with it. Then, I made liberal coffee to get me going in the French Press. I would do ten minutes and then run out and stir and then return to work.

I did my stretching and excises today and five minutes of Susie’s stationary bike. I am feeling better, so it is time to return to that. It wore me out for part of the morning, but I soon felt better. I got my shower in and dressed also between meetings.

I headed out near 11 to see Susie at the hummingbird house. As usual for Friday, the traffic was heavy, and I had to dodge some interesting driving. I also was passed at about 60 in a 40 mph in Beaverton. Air Volvo arrived in Tigard without incident.

I believe we had the night nurse on today, and Michelle Nixon was there too. Susie was eating her breakfast, and I saw she had some challenges and so I sat next to her and helped feed her a couple of times, and then she was able to feed herself. Susie did finish all of her Ensure, and I think she was full. I helped her for fifteen minutes or more.

Once done with her breakfast, Susie and I headed to the Social Activities room and called her mother. We talked to her, Leta, on my iPhone using FaceTime. We had a friendly chat, and Leta was headed in the evening to the church, despite the cold in Michigan, to the Chili Dinner. We soon saw the clock running to noon, and I needed to return to the house. So I left with a kiss and drove home. Today I took 217 to TV highway and avoided local Beaverton traffic on the way back. The traffic was light on the highway, but it did include some non-standard merge rules.

I returned via Air Volvo to the Volvo Cave and reheated the jambalaya from a few days ago, no seafood, watched a few YouTube videos on shipwrecks, and was late for my 1PM meeting. That was the last zoom meeting, but I had an ad hoc meeting to discuss the request to move software changes over the weekend (no way).

The later afternoon was a few crises of the moment that disappeared or moved to Monday.

With work over, I painted my second spell jammer ship model. It is getting there. I will try to make the mast and sails on Saturday morning. I am making smaller and smaller mistakes with paint. I should be able to finish the touch-up on Saturday morning while the sails are drying.

As I wrote, I went to Wildwood Taphouse to get away and write.

I was thinking I could write a better Swords and Sorcery story than what I am reading, but I don’t need another thing to write now.

The bar, The Golem’s Fist, was full of customers all looking for work, adventurers all. The drinks, a mix of intoxicants and magic, are of good quality and quantity, but most importantly to the patrons, cheap. The long-lost owner, Grey the Evoker, only his drinking mug (of cancelation) survives and is the tip jar now. Grey was never interested in overcharging but instead enabling work for adventurers. Grey only demanded they paid their bill when they were flush after some successful plundering. When working the bar before he was lost, Grey would send broke patrons (with high tabs) to explore a lost tomb, a hidden mine, or another adventure he discovered when doing his other job. Grey was an explorer and searcher for lost treasurers. He collected side trips for his customers while facing horrors he seldom described. Grey could always find a profitable adventure to help pay off a tab, but the survival rate was a bit low, “We remember our lost friends today, drinks around on the house,” was his usual call when learning another quest he initiated failed.